Conversion of agricultural by products: Mushroom Cultivation

Binit Kumar  et al.,             

Agaricus bisporus | Vermicompost

Vol: 3; Iss: 10; Oct 17 | ISSN: 2454-5422

An experiment was conducted to evaluate the effect of different casing mixture on various parameters such as number of days required for mycelium run and pin head initiation on casing layer, weight of fresh harvested mushroom per bag, number of fruiting per bag, biological efficiency (%) and cost benefit ratio of white button mushroom [Agaricus bisporus (Lange) Imbach]. In the mushroom crop room three treatments including control with eight replications were taken up. Treatments comprised of T0 Garden loam soil (GLS) + Farm yard manures (FYM) (2:1), T1 GLS + FYM + Vermicompost (VC) (2:1:1), T2 GLS + FYM + slack lime (2:1:1). During cultivation colonization of the casing soil with mushroom mycelium and initiation of pin head stage (17-25 days), total number of fruiting bodies (83.25), maximum yield (0.94kg/bag), biological efficiency (18.21) and cost benefit ratio 1:2.08 were recorded in GLS + FYM + Vermicompost (2:1:1) as compared to control and other combinations.